TariffTriage — Trade War Survival Platform for Canadian Businesses

A multi-agent AI war room that helps Canadian small businesses survive the US-Canada trade war.

Built for HackCanada 2026.

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What It Does

A business owner fills out a form about their products and supply chain. Five specialized AI agents then collaboratively analyze tariff exposure, calculate financial impact, scout alternative suppliers, monitor live geopolitical developments, and generate a personalized Trade War Survival Plan — all visible in real-time on screen as a "war room" experience.

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The Problem

The 2026 US-Canada trade war has imposed 25–35% tariffs on steel, lumber, automotive parts, packaging, chemicals, and more. Existing tools are macro-level dashboards built for economists — not the small business owner in Kitchener who needs to answer:

1. Which of my US-sourced inputs just became 25% more expensive?
2. Can my margins absorb the hit, or am I now unprofitable on certain product lines?
3. Where can I source the same materials from Canadian or non-US suppliers?
4. What specific actions should I take in the next 30/60/90 days?

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How It Works

Step 1: DESCRIBE          Step 2: WATCH              Step 3: ACT
+------------------+      +--------------------+     +------------------+
| User fills form |  ->  | War room activates |  -> | Survival plan    |
| business in      |      | 5 agents work live |     | with specific    |
| plain English    |      | on screen          |     | actions + PDF    |
+------------------+      +--------------------+     +------------------+

The 5 Agents

Agent	Role	Color
Supply Chain Analyst	Maps supply chain, identifies US imports, classifies HS codes via RAG	Blue
Tariff Calculator	Calculates dollar impact per input and product line, runs scenarios	Red
Supplier Scout	Finds Canadian and non-US alternative suppliers	Green
Geopolitical Analyst	Pulls last 24h trade news, assesses escalation risk, flags urgent actions	Orange
Strategy Architect	Synthesizes everything into an actionable survival plan	Purple

Agents run in dependency order with shared memory (Backboard.io). Agent 1 starts immediately; Agents 2 and 4 run in parallel after Agent 1 completes; Agent 3 follows; Agent 5 synthesizes all outputs into the final plan.

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React 18 + TypeScript + Vite
Styling	Tailwind CSS (dark theme)
Backend	FastAPI (Python 3.11+)
LLM	Gemini 2.0 Flash API
Agent Orchestration	Backboard.io SDK
Tariff Data	CBSA tariff schedule CSV (~12K HS codes) via pandas
HS Code Classification	RAG — ChromaDB + Gemini text-embedding-004 embeddings
Live News	Google News RSS + NewsAPI (last 24h trade headlines)
PDF Generation	WeasyPrint
Real-time Comms	WebSocket (FastAPI native)

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Key Features

• Real-time war room UI — watch 5 agents collaborate live with typing effects and status feeds
• RAG-based HS code classification — semantic search over 12K CBSA tariff codes; never hallucinates codes that don't exist
• Interactive Embedding Explorer — 2D visualization of the embedding space showing why the AI picked each HS code; users can override classifications and see live tariff recalculation
• Live geopolitical intelligence — Agent 4 fetches today's actual trade headlines and adjusts risk levels per industry/material in real-time; every demo is different
• Tariff Simulator — interactive slider from 0–50% showing live impact on margins and profitability as you drag
• PDF export — branded 9-page Trade War Survival Plan report
• 3 demo profiles — Kitchener Furniture Manufacturer, Toronto Food Packaging Co., Vancouver Auto Parts Distributor

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Project Structure

HackCanada2026/
├── backend/
│   ├── main.py                    # FastAPI app, CORS, lifespan, routers
│   ├── requirements.txt
│   ├── .env
│   ├── database/
│   │   ├── tariff_data.csv        # CBSA tariff schedule (~12K rows)
│   │   ├── supplier_seed.json     # Pre-researched Canadian suppliers
│   │   └── demo_profiles.json     # 3 pre-built business profiles
│   ├── api/
│   │   ├── analyze.py             # POST /api/analyze
│   │   ├── tariff.py              # GET /api/tariff/{hs_code}
│   │   └── websocket.py           # WS /ws/warroom handler
│   ├── agents/
│   │   ├── base_agent.py
│   │   ├── supply_chain_agent.py
│   │   ├── tariff_agent.py
│   │   ├── supplier_agent.py
│   │   ├── geopolitical_agent.py
│   │   ├── strategy_agent.py
│   │   └── orchestrator.py
│   └── services/
│       ├── gemini_client.py
│       ├── tariff_lookup.py
│       ├── hs_classifier.py       # RAG pipeline: embed → ChromaDB → Gemini pick
│       ├── hs_vector_store.py     # ChromaDB index for HS codes
│       ├── news_fetcher.py        # Live news ingestion
│       └── pdf_generator.py
└── frontend/
    └── src/
        └── components/
            ├── WarRoom.tsx
            ├── BusinessInput.tsx
            ├── AgentFeed.tsx
            ├── AgentGrid.tsx
            ├── SurvivalPlan.tsx
            ├── TariffSimulator.tsx
            ├── TariffChart.tsx
            ├── EmbeddingExplorer.tsx
            ├── PdfExport.tsx
            └── DemoProfiles.tsx

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• Node.js 18+
• API keys: Gemini API, Backboard.io, NewsAPI (optional)

Backend

cd backend
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Create .env with:
# GEMINI_API_KEY=...
# BACKBOARD_API_KEY=...
# NEWSAPI_KEY=...  (optional)

uvicorn main:app --reload --port 8000

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173.

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API Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/analyze	Start a new business analysis, returns session_id
WS	/ws/warroom/{session_id}	Live agent activity stream
GET	/api/session/{id}/plan	Retrieve completed survival plan
GET	/api/session/{id}/pdf	Download survival plan as PDF
GET	/api/tariff/{hs_code}	Look up a specific HS code tariff rate
POST	/api/session/{id}/reclassify	Override an HS code classification
GET	/api/session/{id}/embedding-explorer/{input}	2D embedding space data for visualization
GET	/api/demo-profiles	List available demo business profiles
GET	/health	Service health check

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